The change will occur, NEI officials say, "when Russell Investments reconstitutes its comprehensive set of U.S. and global equity indexes on June 25." The change appears already on a preliminary list of additions posted June 11 on www.russell.com.

'The addition to the Russell 3000 and Russell Microcap indexes increases the credibility and the visibility of NEI within the investment community,' said Greg Shortell, president and CEO of NEI.

For those who, like this reporter, may not be familiar with the index, the annual reconstitution of Russell's U.S. indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization. They're popular among investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies.

Membership in the Russell 3000, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the large-cap Russell 1000 Index or small-cap Russell 2000 Index, evidently, as well as "the appropriate growth and value style indexes,' NEI officials say.

The Russell 3000 also serves as the U.S. component to the Russell Global Index, which Russell launched in 2007.

There is currently $3.9 trillion in assets benchmarked to them. These investment tools originated from Russell's multi-manager investment business in the early 1980s when the company "saw the need for a more objective, market-driven set of benchmarks in order to evaluate outside investment managers," according to Russell officials.

Russell has $179 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2010. It is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

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